Solar Energy Advocates Hoping For A Brighter Future

December 30, 1990|By Patrick Kampert, a member of the Tribune`s staff.

As oil-hungry U.S. consumers and industry drank deep draughts from Arab oil wells in the 1980s, the advances of the previous decade in developing renewable energy resources were left far behind.

Renewable sources of energy-chiefly solar, wind and hydrogen-garnered public support and media attention during the oil crises of the 1970s, with solar getting the lion`s share of the publicity. But by 1988 renewable resources were responsible for just 4 percent of the energy used in the U.S., lagging far behind petroleum, which led all sources of energy with 42.7 percent.

In the last 10 years, the media has lost interest in solar power. What happened? Why did the spotlight fade on solar energy?

Two interlocking reasons: federal budget cuts and falling oil prices.

According to David Block, director of the Florida Solar Energy Research Center, the federal solar energy budget went from a high of $600 million during the Carter administration to a low of $70 million under Ronald Reagan. A rebound is finally beginning, says Block, thanks in large part to solar-conscious Assistant Secretary of Energy Mike Davis.

``I would say the Bush administration has been very positive so far,``

says Block, noting that the solar budget for the current year is $110 million, and that next year`s allotment is $146 million.

Denis Hayes, however, says that`s not nearly enough.

Hayes, the driving force behind Earth Day 1970 and Earth Day 1990, now heads Green Seal, a group seeking to become the environmental equivalent of Underwriters Laboratories, giving its approval to products that promote energy efficiency and conservation. In 1980 he was director of the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colo., an arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, and he saw the effects of the Reagan budget cuts firsthand.

One day, says Hayes, Reagan officials ``came out here and cut my budget by $100 million and fired half of my staff. These were professors who I had persuaded to give up tenure to come work with me . . . and they were left hanging out to dry.``

In retrospect, it was all too easy for Reagan to go with the oil flow. During his two terms, the price of oil plummeted from $40 a barrel to $18.

``Try to name any other product whose price consistently went down in the last 10 years,`` says Block, one of the few solar energy veterans to persevere through the lean times.

The Reagan administration`s efforts in keeping the economy growing was aided by the cheap price of oil and OPEC`s disarray. Although the long-term effects of not investing in alternative energy sources may only be beginning, as President Bush is learning to his discomfort, it is clear that renewable energy resources are not ready to replace foreign oil and nuclear energy.

Davis, at a recent solar energy conference, said that with aggressive research and development, renewable resources` portion of U.S. energy consumption would increase from the 4 percent of 1988 to 28 percent in 2030. That still probably wouldn`t be enough to dislodge petroleum from first place in the energy hit parade, but it does demonstrate that the impact of the current crisis could have been lessened if the U.S. had been able to begin the process of weaning itself away from fossil fuels, something Iraq President Saddam Hussein is very much aware of.

With his land grab in Kuwait on Aug. 2, Hussein took a 19 percent share of the world oil market.

Had he pushed forward immediately and taken Saudi Arabia as well, says Hayes, that share would have risen to 44 percent.

Such a situation could have catastrophic results, says Robert Stokes, deputy director of the Solar Energy Research Institute, because dependence on foreign petroleum already is responsible for 35 percent of the U.S. trade deficit.

``Under Reagan,`` Hayes adds, ``we went from being the world`s largest creditor to the world`s largest debtor.`` Small wonder that Germany and Japan, the world`s economic powerhouses, are the world`s leaders in the use of solar energy, an area in which they have invested heavily since the oil crises of the 1970s.

Reagan`s responsibility for solar energy`s stunted growth didn`t stop with sweeping budget cuts. He also jettisoned the tax credits individual consumers received for investing in solar energy applications in their homes, making the high startup costs of solar technology hard for a budget-conscious public to justify.

In some areas solar is more than competitive as an energy source. In a remote location, like a cabin in the woods, using solar technology is cheaper than running power lines out to the site.

Heating a home and the water inside that home can be accomplished with sunlight-in fact, it`s now possible to run all the appliances in a home off solar energy. Although the initial cost may be considerable, such a setup can pay for itself over the years. Ironically, the leader in this area is Israel, which for obvious reasons is not a consumer of Arab oil.